1983: Ramones guitarist Johnny Ramone had a four hour emergency brain surgery to remove blood clots after being kicked in the head repeatedly in a fight. The Ramones would name their next album Too Tough to Die in his honor.

1979, The biggest single of the summer in the US, The Knack's 'My Sharona' was awarded a Gold record for selling one million copies. The Knack's Doug Fieger wrote the song for his girlfriend, Sharona Alperin, whose picture appeared on the single's cover.

2018 Aretha Franklin, "The Queen Of Soul", passed away at the age of 76. During her career she amassed twenty Billboard R&B chart toppers, forty-five Billboard Top 40 hits and won eighteen Grammy Awards. In 1987, she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1957 Tim Farriss (lead guitarist for INXS) is born in Perth, Western Australia.

1962 Peter, Paul, and Mary release "If I Had A Hammer."

1977 The King is dead. Elvis Presley dies at his home in Graceland as a result of an overdose from from prescription drugs.

1986 At a soggy Monsters Of Rock festival at Castle Donington, England, Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen gets a huge ovation when he takes the stage with the band. Twenty months earlier, Allen's left arm was severed in a car accident, and after extensive rehab and some warm-up gigs, he makes a triumphant return at the festival, playing barefoot behind a drum kit modified with electronic pedals. Scorpions and Motörhead are also on the bill, which is headlined by Ozzy Osbourne.

1969, The final day of the 3 day Woodstock Festival took place at Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York. Acts who appeared included Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Ten Years After, John Sebastian, Sha Na Na, Joe Cocker, Country Joe and the Fish, The Band, Ten Years After, Johnny Winter and Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Over 186,000 tickets had been sold but on the first day the flimsy fences and ticket barriers had come down. Organizers announced the concert would be a free event, prompting thousands more to head for the concert.

1949 Sib Hashian (drummer for Boston) is born in Boston, Massachusetts.

1965 Steve Gorman (drummer for The Black Crowes) is born in Muskegon, Michigan.

1980 At the Toledo Speedway Jam II in Toledo, Ohio, ZZ Top headlines the show with AC/DC, Sammy Hagar and Humble Pie on the undercard. (Also advertised on the poster: 800 kegs of beer, drinking age 18 in Ohio!) It is the last time AC/DC is a support act until 2003, when they open for The Rolling Stones.

2004 The venerable "Like A Rock" ad campaign comes to an end, as Chevy stops using the song and ends their association with Bob Seger. The 1986 song wasn't written for Chevy, but was used in the ads since 1989. Two years later, John Mellencamp's "Our Country" becomes the Silverado theme.

1985: ZZ Top headlined the Monster of Rock festival at Castle Donington in the U.K. Other acts on the bill included Bon Jovi, Metallica & Ratt.

1991: Nirvana filmed the music video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in Culver City, CA. The video cost less than $50,000 to make & led MTV to favor alternative bands in place of pop metal bands.

1991: AC/DC headlined the Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington in the U.K. on a bill that included Metallica, Motley Crue, Queensryche & The Black Crowes. This was the first & only time in the festival’s history that every band on the bill had a Platinum album in the U.S.

1964, Over 9,000 frenzied fans met The Beatles as they arrived in San Francisco, to begin an American tour. The Beatles were driven into a protective fence enclosure so that photographers could take pictures. As the 9,000 fans pressed against the fencing, it gave way, with The Beatles managing to get out split-seconds before it came crashing down.

1969, Mick Jagger was accidentally shot in the hand during filming of Ned Kelly in Australia. The film was dogged by problems: Jagger's girlfriend of the time, Marianne Faithfull, had gone to Australia to play the lead female role (Ned's sister, Maggie), but the Jagger-Faithfull relationship was breaking up, and she took an overdose of sleeping tablets soon after arrival in Sydney resulting in being hospitalized in a coma, and pulling out of the film.

1977, The Police made their live debut as a three-piece band when they played at Rebecca's Birmingham, England. The Police became globally popular in the late 1970s and are generally regarded as one of the first New Wave groups to achieve mainstream success, playing a style of rock that was influenced by punk, reggae, and jazz.

1986, Bon Jovi released their third studio album, Slippery When Wet, which peaked at No.1 on the US charts, going on to sell over 28 million copies worldwide. The set featured two US chart toppers, 'You Give Love A Bad Name' and 'Livin’ On A Prayer'.

1948 Elliot Lurie (lead guitarist, vocalist for Looking Glass) is born in Brooklyn, New York.

1951 John Deacon (bassist for Queen) is born in Oadby, Leicester, England.

1969 Cleanup begins at Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York, where the Woodstock festival has finished up. Bulldozers are used to wrangle the trash into a pit, where it is burned.

1983 Having been sporadic since it was originally shut down in 1968, "pirate radio" station Radio Caroline makes its comeback on board the ship Ross Revenge in the North Sea's international waters. Six years to the day later, it would be shut down again.

1979, American Rockabilly singer Dorsey Burnette died from a heart attack at his home in Canoga Park, California. He wrote 'It's Late', a hit for Ricky Nelson and Shakin' Stevens. After his death, singer and friend Delaney Bramlett organized a benefit concert for Dorsey’s widow at the Forum in Inglewood, California, in which Kris Kristofferson, Hoyt Axton. Tanya Tucker, Glen Campbell, Duane Eddy, Delaney and Bonnie, Gary Busey and Roger Miller appeared. Dorsey Burnette's pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

1988, 'Crazy' by Patsy Cline and Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' were announced as the most played jukebox songs of the first hundred years. The jukebox had been around since 1906, but earlier models had been first seen in 1889.